11/14/09 House of Games tourney report. Swanton Oh.

[Twaun007]

Twaun P. Pownertown’s tournament report of doom. I went Viashino Heretic so don't expect anything exciting. It is just a quick rundown.

I roll out of bed at 1pm to the glorious sound of my coffee maker percolating and I get ready to enjoy a great cup of Joe. About 1:30 80% of Team Serious blows up my phone to make sure I’m up and functioning. I think they have some weird idea that I live in a different time zone or something. Anyway, I load up the car and start off to Guhstins‘s house. I get to Guhstin’s and we chill for awhile. Around 4:00 we head off to Swanton’s own House of Games. During the car ride we listed to copious amounts of rap and talk endlessly about one of the greatest movies of all time, Predator.

We roll into the House of Games around 5:30 and register for the tourney. A few minutes later the rest of Team Serious shows up.

I played this pile

Artifacts-30
1 Black Lotus
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
3 Null Rod
4 Smokestack
1 Sol Ring
4 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Tangle Wire
1 Trinisphere

Instants-1
1 Darkblast

Creatures-8
4 Dark Confidant
4 Goblin Welder

Lands-21
4 Badlands
1 Barbarian Ring
2 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Cabal Pit
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
1 Wooded Foothills

Side Board
2 Maze of Ith
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Relic of the Pro Gamer
2 Viashino Heretic

Rd 1 Paul w/ Fish

G1- I see the mulligan hammer coming at me already. I immediately say “I guess it its going to be one of those days.” I keep an alright hand of Badands, Mox Emerald, Welder, Thorn of Amethyst, and Crucible. I keep it. His first turn he strips my land. I never see another one and three Tarmogoyfs take it home for him.
G2-My opener has turn 1 Trinisphere, 2 Workshops, Welder, 2 Wastelands, and Tangle Wire. Paul counters my Trinisphere, he gets a Confidant down and I proceed to draw 5 lands in a row. I love Magic.

Rd 2 Yuri w/ Tezz

G1- He blows me out on the play. It was so bad I deleted it from my memory. I believe it was worse that Landstill facing Dreadge.
G2- My opener is Trinisphere, Black Lotus, Goblin Welder, CotV, Workshop, Mox, Thorn. My Trinisphere sticks and according to my notes I draw worse that Michael J. Fox off his medication for the rest of the game. Time is called and for some reason we think it’s game one and we start talking about rolling a dice to see who wins since the tourney is only four rounds. We almost roll and then we’re like wait a minute, its game two! Yuri wins.

Rd 3 Joshua w/ Tezz

G1- I drop three lock components by turn two and it’s all over after Bobby Digital hits the battlefield. I don’t even know what he is playing yet so I just board in two rebs.
G-2- He keeps a sketchy hand and opens  Mox, Lotus Petal, and Top. My hand is Lotus, Land, Reb, Stack, Workshop, Mox, Bobby Digital. I drop turn 1 3ball with Reb back up. He Brainstorms of Lotus Petal and tries to force and I reb it. Stack comes down a turn later and he scoops.

Rd 4 Bob Davis w/ Tezz

We look at standings and I scoop to help Nam get into the top eight. We play like 10 games and he requested that I don’t post the results due to B/RStax domination. He did get one game though.

Here are some pictures from the Q.


Yangtime is watching Juanmandingo and The Great Guhstini strike a pose for the camera.


Yangtime and Guhstin battling in the swiss.


Nartman99 and Randolmore the Red in a heated wizards duel. Notice Randal's spectacular beard.


Cjester and Yuri in heated game. Yuri is in the middle of saying Randal's beard is two times better than his.


Juanmandingo's opener in the top 8 vs Angel. Reminds ya of testing on MWS doesn't it? He mulled it.


Angels Busted U/R Workshop aggro hand vs Juanmandingo in top 8.


G and Paul battling in top 8.


John, Nartman, Guhstin, and Randalmore the Red battling for the top spots.


Nartman just Duressed the crap out of Guhstin.


The tournament had a really relaxed atmosphere and the venue was super clean. Hopefully they decide to run some more of these thing in the future.

Randalmore has the standings and top 8 so hopefully he will post them up later.

[icy_triskelion]

Here you go Twaun:


Played my TPS list with Jaco's suggested changes:

Lands:15
3x Flooded strand
4x Polluted Delta
4 x Underground Sea
2x Island
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Swamp

Artifact:12
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Emerald
1x Black Lotus
1x Mana Crypt
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Time Vault
1x Voltaic Key
1x SDT

Artifact Creature:1
1x Darksteel Colossus

Creatures:4
4x Dark Confidant


Instants:15
4x Dark Ritual
4x Force of Will
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Brainstorm
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Gifts Ungiven
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Chain of Vapors
1x Rebuildl

Sorceries:11
4x Duress
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Tinker
1x Yawgmoth’s Will
1x Time Walk
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Mind's Desire
1x Tendrils of Agony

Enchantment:1
1x Necro


SIDEBOARD:15
2x Yixlid Jailer
1x Pithing Needle
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Trinket Mage
1x Transmute Artifact
1x Darkblast
1x Tormod’s Crypt
2x Hurkyl’s Recall
1x Infest
1x Massacure
1x Sundering Titan
1x Voltaic Key
1x Echoing Truth

RD1: Nam-Iona Oath 1-2
    Game one: early duress followed by Bob with FoW to get it into play and then Tinker robot for win.
    Game two: Kept a neat hand only to get it Twistered away, Nam get Oath, Iona on Blue and wins with Vault/Key
    Game three: took mad beat form Bob and Mana Crypt, took 14 damage during my upkeep.

RD2: Rob- Ad Naus?(local)2-0
    Game one: Tenticals for the win.
    Game two: Vault/Key for the win.

RD3: Chase-UG Stompy 2-1
    Game one: Tenticals for the win.
    Game two: Punted game with Vault in play and Vamp in hand during my upkeep.
    Game three:  Vault/Key for the win.

RD4: CJ- UR Remora 2-0
    Scooped to me to get me in to top 8, but went 1-1 in playing for fun.

Top8:
RD5: John- Dragon Oath 2-0
    Game one: Tenticals for the win.  Baited out his counter with Dark Ritual, then played Lotus, Crypt, Sapphire, Demonic, Will, Lotus, Rit, Demonic, Tenticals.
    Games two:  Played it slow holding first turn tinker back with no counter backup.  Played bob, then Brainstormed at the end of his turn drawing vamp.  Reviled for bob, vamped for FoW, Tinker Crypt for Titan destroying his Trop and 2x Underground with no Moxen in play.  He had no counters in had to worry about.

Top4:
RD6: Well I would of played Angel but Nam, Angel, G, and myself where the top 4 so we decided to split based on points.  Nam took the FtV, I took the Fat Pack, Angel took the Petal, and G took the Planechase.

Over all, my deck played good.  I never got to play Desire the whole night.  I might switch it to Ponder or Trinket.  Also changing the SB around as well.

[Twaun007]

Game one: Tenticals for the win.

   
If only the rest of the world knew who how truly awful this is.

[JACO]

Good job Randall! Keep dominating.

Twaun, your masterful performance coupled with Jimmy's scrub out yesterday at Xtreme Games' tourney with the same deck makes me happy to know there are still people who love to play Workshop even though Rebuild exists. This is one of the reasons I might move to Ohio. Just so I could dominate Workshops round after round. That and so I could BMX with you and Ghustin.

[JThomas]

Game one: Tenticals for the win.

   
If only the rest of the world knew who how truly awful this is.

Anyway, Here's the report.
Round 1:  Angel - Artifact Aggro -
Game 1 - Fan this Hand,   Force of Will, Forbidden Orchard, Demonic Tutor, Mox Pearl, Mox Jet, Oath of Druids, Mox Sapphire.   He's good to go so I Orchard, Pearl, Jet, Sapphire.  Demonic Tutor for Time Walk (so I could either Walk after oathing next turn or possibly Force of Will to back up Oath).   Cast oath.
Him - Mountain, go
Me - Oath into Tyrant, time walk.
 
Game 2: Fast oath. Spell Pierce a Stax.  Pretty much same thing. Angel goes on to Top 4 so it definitely was just random lucky draws on my part.

Round 2: TPS 1-1 Justin - this guy cracks me up -nice friendly banter throughout...
Game 1 - stormed out no counter
Game 2 - Oathed into Iona on black - Game Over
Game 3 - Oath in play and no creatures/orchard.   He goes wild when we're on turns.
 
Round 3 - Tezzeret 2-1
Game 1 - I open with oath in hand but play it nice and slow.  He dances around a bunch of stuff drawing cards in first hands but T3 I play Oath, orchard and spell pierce his FoW.
On his turn he casts  Vault and key but no mana to activate.   Passes the turn back to me and I Oath into Iona set to blue.  I also flashback an Ancient Grudge from the yard to blow out his time vault.
Game 2 - I rip an early ancestral and get an oath out (he cast a bob) Angel on Blue, Dragon to mop up.....
 
Round 4 - Artifact Aggro w/ Jester's Caps and Welders  3-1 Gilberto
Game 1 - I get Oath down and ready to go next turn.  On his turn he casts Jester's Cap but has a sphere of resistance down making him one short of being able to activate it.
at the end of his turn I lim dul's vault and set my deck with a Hellkite on top followed by an Ancestral.   I oath out the hellkite rip the ancestral and attack 8.  He caps me removing my remaining two creatures and my time vault.   Hellkite finishes the job.
 
Game 2 - I get oath down and he has mox monkeys again.  I get Iona down set to red.
He tries to cast a welder and I back him up because Iona prevents it.   He's a bit land light with 1 mountain and two ancient tombs.  Next turn I oath into a hellkite and swing with both the hellkite and Iona for 15.  He casts duplicant on iona to remove her and create himself just a vanilla 7/7.  He drops a mountain and casts his welder now but I kill him with the hellkite next turn.
 
Top 8 - Against a different TPS - Randal
I don't have much in the way of notes on this but he just mauled me.  Randal's notes are better.
It was a massaccre both games. 

Back to the drawing board both losses to TPS. 

I'm back to Vintage after about an almost decade long hiatus so I'm learning as I go.
These Cleveland guys are nice enough to smack me around and give me proper lessons.
Thanks for dragging me out for IHOP afterward.  A pox on Don Pablo's for closing early.

A lot of the games could have easily gone the other way but I think that's what I like about vintage.
Sometimes you're the dog and sometimes you're the hydrant!

As an afterthought I cracked my Zendi packs and in one pack I saw a Foil Nissa - that got me going pretty happy so much that I didn't even notice
that the rare in it until I got home was a nice Scalding Tarn.

[cancerstix]

Congrats on the top 8, J.T.  Are you running Vault/Key in your Oath list?  I didn't see it come down in the few games we played Friday.

[JThomas]

Congrats on the top 8, J.T.  Are you running Vault/Key in your Oath list?  I didn't see it come down in the few games we played Friday.

Yes.   Just didn't come out that way.
In fact the whole day I didn't see Vault/Key.

[voltron00x]

John, congrats on the T8.  TPS is definitely an issue for my version of Oath... I may need to stop pretending it isn't a deck 

[JThomas]

John, congrats on the T8.  TPS is definitely an issue for my version of Oath... I may need to stop pretending it isn't a deck 

I think maybe just a tweak to the sideboard or two for the meta may be all that is required.

After reflecting I think one problem I had was that I need to remember to be a touch more agressive when mulliganing.
I have to remember I'm combo control not just control so I kept some sluggish hands where I could have probably mulliganed into something better with at least one combo piece.

Thanks for all the help and advice Matt the deck worked very well.

[voltron00x]

John, congrats on the T8.  TPS is definitely an issue for my version of Oath... I may need to stop pretending it isn't a deck 

I think maybe just a tweak to the sideboard or two for the meta may be all that is required.

After reflecting I think one problem I had was that I need to remember to be a touch more agressive when mulliganing.
I have to remember I'm combo control not just control so I kept some sluggish hands where I could have probably mulliganed into something better with at least one combo piece.

Thanks for all the help and advice Matt the deck worked very well.

Oath is definitely a deck that you can, and should, mulligan aggressively.  I've tended to avg in the 20-30% range for my opening 7, although I've had tournaments that crept up higher than that (and sometimes you get lucky - when I split in the finals of the tournament I played in Sept, I took no mulligans all day).  I feel like the most recent list is more consistent than the versions I played over the summer.

Against most of the top-tier decks, Oath has to be the beatdown.  Its control-ish elements are really more for disruption and living through the first few turns than for taking a true control role (one of the reasons why I've avoided adding cards like Mana Drain, Mana Leak, Negate, and so on, and why I think Spell Pierce is so good for the deck).  When I was playing the deck early in 2009, and learning Vintage again, the mistake I made most often was to keep hands that were full of control cards - Negate, Thoughtseize, Force of Will, Chalice of the Void - but didn't have Oath or Orchard and no tutors for them.  Against Shops, this type of hand takes too long to amount to anything, and against Tezz, they just blow through your light permission and then start outdrawing you.